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I have been tasked with finding a way to create VMs for our existing Linux servers, as sometimes we have do deal with issues related to the entire machine (virutal hardware, OS, etc.). These are usually web servers and we (mostly) have backup systems in place, for the actual web sites. But, sometimes we need to deal lower level issues. As much as possible, we don't want to alter the running instances.

Also, we would like to keep copies of these in some offline system, so we know we have backups, independent of where the servers are ultimately hosted on. It would be nice to test and debug from a more localhost (local pc) type of environment.

I'm not specific about the which technology to use, so I'm quite to suggestions. I looked into:

  • Docker - Seems you need to have your system already 'dockerized'
    before you can stop copying containers about. Also, may not be enough for lower level machine issues.
  • VMWare - This would be nice, seems close but I can't find a way to create a vmware VM from an existing Linux server. Is this possible? how?
  • Virtual Box - Couldn't find anything.
  • Others?

Is this a reasonable task? Are there other ways to let us test and debug our running servers in an isolated environment?

Edit: Just getting a complete snapshot image of boot drive may be good enough, as long as there is a way to convert it to VM image.

Jahmic
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1 Answers1

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You can use VMware Converter Linux P2V Conversion. The standalone converter is free to use.

Step-by-Step Walkthrough To perform Linux P2V conversion, you should take the following steps:

  1. Download VMware vCenter Converter Standalone from the official web site.

  2. Install the converter on a Windows machine that can connect to your Linux machine via the network.

  3. Run VMware vCenter Converter Standalone.

  4. Click Convert machine.

  5. Select the source system in the machine conversion wizard that is open. Select Powered on (or off) and Remote Linux machine. Specify the IP address, user name, and password used on the remote Linux machine. Remember that the SSH server must be configured on the Linux machine and a firewall must not block SSH connections on this step. Otherwise, the error message will be displayed: Unable to SSH to the source machine. Check if a firewall is blocking access to the SSH daemon on the source machine. The user you have specified must be able to log in to the Linux console via SSH by using the login/password combination or a private key file. A user called user1 with a password is taken for this example.

  6. Select the destination system. By default, the destination type is defined as VMware Infrastructure virtual machine if you are converting a physical Linux machine, and this is the only available option for converting a physical Linux machine to a VMware VM. This means that the destination VM will run on an ESXi server or in the VMware vSphere cluster. If your ESXi host on which you want to run the converted VM is managed by vCenter, select the IP address of your vCenter Server and define the credentials of vCenter administrator or another user who has administrative privileges for managing vCenter Server.

Note: You cannot convert a physical Linux machine to a VM of the VMware Workstation format with VMware vCenter Converter Standalone. You must host it on an ESXi machine.

  1. Destination Virtual Machine. Select the datacenter to store the virtual machine and enter the name for the target VM, for example, Ubuntu18-01-vm.

  2. Destination Location. Select an ESXi host to run the virtual machine and a datastore to store virtual machine files. You can also select the virtual machine version. By default, the highest supported virtual machine version is selected.

  3. Options. On this step, you can edit different conversion options, like what volumes, thin/thick type or other hardware parameters. Be careful to correctly consider the network.

  4. Summary. Double-check all conversion settings and if everything is correct, hit Finish to start the conversion process.

  5. Wait until the conversion process is finished.

  6. Power off the original machine (if converted as on-line) and power-on the converted VM.

Overmind
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  • Looks real promising but I only have SSH access to the servers. On Windows, I have and use putty but I'm thinking that might be enough here. Will check it out a bit. Thanks. – Jahmic Jan 23 '20 at 11:12
  • I used this when switching from physical to VM infrastructure. Worked well in migrating both Windows and Linux OS'es. – Overmind Jan 23 '20 at 11:14